


a haunting of men

by ididnotmakethemoon



Category: Red Dead Redemption (Video Games)
Genre: M/M, Vampires
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-23
Updated: 2020-03-23
Packaged: 2021-02-28 18:55:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,182
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23272072
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ididnotmakethemoon/pseuds/ididnotmakethemoon
Summary: If Arthur didn't live, at least he didn't die, either.
Relationships: John Marston/Arthur Morgan
Comments: 2
Kudos: 57





	a haunting of men

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this I now realize exactly a year ago for my good friend Sam. I am only now just posting it. Hope there's no mistakes, it's been a hot minute since I played the game.

John pushed open the door and stood looking into darkness. Usually Abigail would leave a candle burning for him, but it must’ve gone out. The room was cold. The curtains were drawn - not that they did much, their only window facing another brick building - and there was no light. John held his breath and listened for Jack’s light snoring. His blood was loud in his ears, the slight shifting of his feet making the floorboards creak loudly. If anyone was awake they would know he was home.

“Abigail?” He called softly, but no one replied. Another beat of silence and his ears picked up the sound of their breath. Abigail must be tired, he thought - she spent every day here working hard, working fast. He let his own breath out slowly, and crossed into the threshold of the apartment. 

No sooner had his foot touched down in the dark floor than the curtains opened. John blinked, his eyes halfway adjusted to the dark already, and saw a thick, pale hand pulling them back. The arm the hand belonged to disappeared into the shadows in the corner, but as muted light trickled in John could make out the sunken cheeks, the bruised eyes, the sick, pallid skin. Arthur tied the curtains and moved soundlessly across the floor, past John, to the hallway.

“Jesus Christ, Arthur,” John muttered, and Arthur’s head twitched towards him as he glided past. Everything about his movements was feverish, quick and jerky, like a moving picture sped up too fast. As he passed he leaned his mouth in close to John’s ear and breathed a quiet “ _ sorry”  _ before he floated out into the hall. Arthur’s duster billowed behind him. He moved effortlessly, disappearing down the stairs in the blink of an eye. John let out a breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding, and became much more aware of the room: the creak of the floorboards somewhere above them, muted voices from down the hall, the sounds of music from the saloon down the street, slow hooves on the stone outside. He pulled his hat off his head and shook his hair free, letting it fall across his face like a shadow. 

***

John never slept well in Saint Denis. It wasn’t necessarily out of fear of being found out. As far as anyone was concerned, the Van Der Linde gang was no more, and he hoped cleaning up the mess they had left was taking up all the law’s resources. There’d been a few close calls, sure, but they would move soon, John promised himself every morning, as soon as he knew exactly what to do with Arthur. 

The problem with Saint Denis was the noise. All those voices and hooves and bootsteps that continued too long into the night, with no camp to ride home to, leaving the cobblestone and smell of railyard and smoke behind. Even with the water so close by, there was no gentle caress of river song, no crickets or foxes, no haunted trees for the wind to move through. No, here, everything was heavy as smoke, heavy with danger, and it didn’t help that his first taste of Saint Denis had been forever soured by the circumstances under which it’d came. Even with Jack sleeping with his head cradled in an open book, John couldn’t shake the feeling that danger lurked in every corner, that one day he’d open his eyes and that particular nightmare would come alive again. Saint Denis was dark, dark and cold. 

When John opened his eyes that morning, Jack’s bed was empty, and he felt the familiar panic settle in his chest. But Abigail was making breakfast, and hadn’t woken him, so everything must be okay. 

Abigail knew he didn’t sleep well when he got home, and too often let him rest while she scraped together flour biscuits and a little bit of leftover fat from pork they’d cooked the other night. It didn’t make him feel any less guilty. Daylight streamed in through their window, and with it the soft ritual of rain on the window panes. Abigail’s chin was tucked against her breast, concentrating on scrubbing her fingers in a bucket, her hair pulled back in a bun.

“Hey,” John grunted, pushing himself up on his elbows. The lumpy straw mattress beneath him dug into his lower back. Abigail looked up, her face a mask.

“Morning, John,” she murmured. John frowned. 

“What’s wrong?” He asked. She didn’t look panicked, but she didn’t look happy.

“I sent Jack to play downstairs. He promised to stay right by the door,” she said. “There’s some other boys kicking a ball around in the alley.” She pointed at the window, and John, following her point, staggered over.

Sure enough, a group of boys were kicking at a rough, lopsided ball. Jack was trailing after them, looking up at the apartment building every so often, eyes scanning the windows as if trying to find them. John gave a little wave but the boy didn’t see.

“Is everything alright?” He asked, rubbing at his jaw. His fingers ran across the scar tissue where the beard wouldn’t grow. When he looked back at Abigail, her gaze was pointing at the corner, and John’s eyes followed. 

It took him a second to register that the motionless pile of dark clothing was indeed Arthur, and that he probably wasn’t dead, no matter how much he resembled a corpse. (And John knew, John knew all about corpses, from bullet and disease and Arthur had looked half-dead from the tuberculosis sure but this -) John idly wondered where Arthur had found those clothes: He’d never had them before. They were all thick and black, even in the muggy swamp heat, with tall black boots and a long black coat he disappeared into during the day. He looked almost skeletal, the skin pulled tight around his eyes, up to his temple, where his greasy hair lay limp on his scalp. His lips and chin were cracked, and blood stained his lips and chin, as though he’d been coughing again. His arms were wrapped around himself and it took John a minute to realize that Arthur’s fingernails were also dark with drying blood. 

“Jack woke up this morning and asked me why Uncle Arthur always comes home with a bloody mouth,” she said. She spoke in a normal volume. Her tone was tired and forceful and she gripped the washrag with tight, water-wrinkled fingers. “He was worried that Uncle Arthur’s getting worse.”

John let his hand fall to his side. They hadn’t explained tuberculosis to Jack when Arthur’d had it, but now, the excuse of an illness was much easier for a child to hear than the truth. At least now they didn’t have to say that it was killing him. 

“I’ll talk to him,” John said. “Ask him to clean up before he comes home, at least. Jack don’t need to be worrying about things like that.” 

Not about Arthur Morgan, at least. 

John stepped over to his sleeping friend, pausing with his hand halfway out to shake him awake. Not for the first time he wondered who’s blood it was. Funny how he never used to wonder, when Arthur turned up in bloody clothes with a new horse or a new bounty on him, who’s blood it had been. But now, looking at the red on Arthur’s lips, it was the only thing he could think. He never used to care about how the people they’d hurt died. But now - now he couldn’t help but wonder. Couldn’t help but imagine. 

“Don’t bother, John,” Abigail sighed. She leaned heavily over the table, her fists clenched, her knuckles white. “We’ve got enough on our plates, worrying about trying to get out of here.”

Her eyes flicked from the window, to the door, then back to John. Her gaze only grazed over Arthur, as if looking at him for too long would make it  _ real  _ real. 

John glanced back at Arthur, still as soon, asleep on the floor. Arthur spent all his daylight hours indoors, in shadows. What would the open road even do to him?

“We don’t know what he’s capable of,” John replied. “If he can even come with us.”

“I think we know perfectly well what he’s capable of, John!” Abigail snapped. She was quicker to snap ever since it all went to hell, eyes wild and steely underneath hair pulled loose from her ponytail. “Coming home like this every night - we know, John!”

“Don’t talk about him like that,” John snapped back, harsher than he intended. “He saved our  _ lives _ , Abigail.”

Abigail closed her eyes, drew in a big, long breath. It took a second but her grip on the edge of the table relaxed and she stood a little straighter. 

“And I can never repay him for that,” Abigail murmured. “I will never repay Arthur Morgan for what he did for us these past few months. But I have to believe that the Arthur Morgan who was willing to die to save us understands how I’m feeling.” She swallowed. “Jack has to come first, John. He always has to. Always.” 

A loud, deliberate yawn from the corner made them both jump, and John swung his head around to look at Arthur. There was a second’s delay, and then Arthur’s eyelids flickered. Long lashes - had his lashes always been that long? - swept his cheeks, and then two deep, dark red eyes gazed back at John from a sickly face. He half expected Arthur to cough again, like he used to, but Arthur’s chest didn’t move as he stood in one swift motion, too graceful for someone who seconds ago had been a heap on the floor. 

“Morning, Marston,” Arthur mumbled, and John shivered. The only thing that hadn’t really changed was the voice, as if the real - the old Arthur was trapped inside there, somewhere. “Good morning, Miss Roberts.”

John opened his mouth to tell Arthur off, but Arthur thrust his hand into John’s chest, waving a handful of crumpled bills at him. John couldn’t think of what to do but take them, and carefully unfolded them to count. Fifteen dollars. 

“Rent,” Arthur grunted. He moved completely silently over to their small table, pointing at the water bucket Abigail had been washing up in. “May I?” 

Abigail nodded, her face pulled into tight, painful lines, and John tried to feel vindicated but mostly he just felt sorry for her. For all of them. John looked down at his fifteen dollars, as Arthur splashed his face in the bucket, scrubbing his fingernails and his lips. The water turned red. 

“Mnmh. Sorry about that,” Arthur mumbled. “I would, ah, but - “ 

“No, no, it’s fine,” Abigail said. “I was done with it, anyway.”

Arthur nodded, and rubbed his now clean jaw, looking between her and John. “You folks need anything from me, then?”

Abigail glanced and John, and John stared at Abigail, their earlier discussion dying between them. With Arthur’s eyes open and the flash of teeth when he moved his lips John couldn’t help but think of wolves in the snow, red on rock. He knew they were different, but it was the same principle, really.

“I just -“ John began, at the same time Abigail said “Arthur,” and they both stopped, looking at each other as if expecting to find their answer there. Arthur sighed, rubbing his jaw, looking between the two of them patiently. John, gathering himself, started again.

“Would you - be able to - you know, clean up before coming home?” Abigail beat him to it, nodding at the bucket. “For. Jack’s sake. You know.”

Arthur went still, and when Arthur went still now it was like looking at a statue. Like an angel in a graveyard, his brain provided helpfully. Ugh. 

“I suppose. I apologize, I - it was getting early. I was tired.” Arthur’s hand dropped to his side, and he averted his eyes.  _ He’s embarrassed,  _ John realized. “I’ll make sure I’m cleaned up before I come in next time.” 

“Thank you,” John said, and the three of them were left standing awkwardly. Abigail was looking at her hands again, her lips pulled into a tight line. 

“Gonna go back to sleep now,” Arthur said, backing up slowly, back into his corner. “Sorry, again, I really am.” He nodded, as if half to himself. John found himself nodding back. He couldn’t remember a time when Arthur averted his gaze like that. Like a bad dream trying to disappear. 

“Thanks,” John said, twisting the bills around in his fist. Obnoxiously, again, he couldn’t help but wonder where they’d come from.  _ Does it matter? He’s done worse. I’ve done worse. _

Arthur slowly folded over on himself, his eyes closing before the fabric had even settled around him. When he went still again, John’s eyes met Abigail’s, and they both, at the same time, remembered to breathe. 

***

“Is Uncle Arthur going to die?”

Jack had this way of leading up to questions with smaller, less important questions. It would never fail to catch John off guard. Abigail was out working a job washing laundry for some rich folk in town, and John had no luck finding work himself, and was sitting across from Jack on the cold floorboards. 

Jack wasn’t allowed to touch when John cleaned his guns, but John figured it did no harm to let him watch. That way, if, someday, he needed to do it himself (for hunting or safety, when we buy that ranch, Abigail) it would be familiar to him. Teach him about guns responsibly, like a good father would.

John held the blackened rifle across his lap, fingering the wolf carving on the stock. It seemed needlessly fancy and didn’t suit its owner at all. It had been Arthur’s gun at one point, and John had never taken him for that kind of man. Arthur had given it to John before John lost him on the mountain. When Arthur had caught up with them in Saint Denis, he hadn’t needed it back. 

Jack was sitting with his legs crossed in front of his father, shoulders hunched. His face was still round, and pink in the cheeks, and his dark eyes seemed to pierce right through John’s head and leave him fumbling for how to respond with anything but a growl. Children were frustrating, but John thought he might’ve had an easier time if Jack was running around with pocket knives in Saint Denis alleys, instead of sitting there with those big, haunted eyes that asked so many god damn questions. 

“We’re all gonna die one day, Jack,” he settled for, looking back down at his work, at his hands, the gun oil on his fingers and under his nails. Well that wasn’t helpful because now he was thinking about Arthur’s nails, bloodied when they first came here, but ever since he and Abigail asked him they’d been picked and scrubbed clean like a skeleton in the desert. 

“Is Uncle Arthur going to die soon?” Jack’s stare was unwavering but his voice betrayed him. His lips weren’t moving but John could’ve sworn he saw those names rearing and dying on his lips - Hosea, Sean, Lenny, Miss Grimshaw, over and over again, and sometimes John hearted Abigail trying to shush the boy when he asked what had happened to Uncle Dutch. That was harder to explain. 

“Uncle Arthur’s tougher than you think, Jack,” he offered. He felt like if he said Arthur was all better Jack would know it was a lie. Jack could see the sickness on Arthur’s skin, the dark rings under his eyes, and nowadays the stillness of his sleep and the faint smell of blood seemed to just point towards what had once been the horrible truth.

_ I wonder if he wears black all the time to hide that he’s covered in blood,  _ John thought abruptly, and for a second he was pulled away from Jack, into some dark alley or the quiet buzzing swamp, Arthur leaned over with his teeth to flesh, snarling like a wolf - 

“So he’s gonna get better?” Jack asked, pulling John right back home to the floor of their apartment. John landed with a wheeze, and stared helplessly at Jack, not sure how to explain the truth as it was right now. “He’s gonna be the Old Uncle Arthur again?”

_ God I wish,  _ John thought before he could stop himself. That hit him like a freight train. That the Arthur who’d ridden through that storm with them - hardy and grumpy and tired and resilient, but warm and alive - had been stripped bare. John wasn’t sure what to think of that. He himself had probably changed: the bullshit with Dutch, Micah, losing everyone, over and over again… and then Arthur had gotten sick, and John watched the life drain out of him, heard him say and think things the old Arthur never would. Heard him make decisions he didn’t know Arthur was capable of making.

Then that night on the mountain. And the thing that came off the mountain. The thing that followed them home. 

“Sometimes,” he began, fighting the urge to steer away, gripping the barrel of the gun and keeping it pressed low in his lap. “Things happen to us that change us. Forever. It’s like growing up.”

“Growing up?”

“Like, you’re gonna keep getting bigger and stronger and knowing new things, and the person you were when you were six won’t be the person you are when you’re seven. Sometimes big things happen that make changes like that really quickly.” John wasn’t sure he was making much sense, and Jack wasn’t giving him very much to go off of - just staring back at him with big, dark, demanding eyes. “What matters is that Uncle Arthur is here now and he cares about you just as much as he ever did.”

“I think that… Uncle Arthur isn’t happy,” Jack replied. “Like he’s still not feeling well.”

John sighed, setting the gun down, because it wasn’t getting any cleaner by just starting at it. “Maybe. I dunno. Uncle Arthur doesn’t really wanna talk about it, so it’s not something you have to worry about, okay?”

“...Okay,” Jack said, and nothing made John feel more like a bad father than knowing that Jack can and absolutely would worry. The boy stood slowly, dusting himself off and looking down at his father with - what? Pity? No. Jack just looked at him like that, always. John looked down at his hands, at the gun oil under his fingernails. He couldn’t place it, but his hands looked different, too. 

***

John returned home that night later than usual. He stopped outside their building and smoked a cigarette hoping the smoke would mask the smell of drinking on his breath, although Abigail had always been smarter than that. He exhaled quietly and the smoke curled upwards in the warm, muggy night.

Abigail wanted to leave, and soon. John didn’t blame her. This place was hostile, and there was only so long he could slink around looking for under the table work before someone noticed, before the mess they’d made up new Annesburg caught up to them and someone decided to wipe out the old Van Der Linde gang for good. They’d been living, now, quietly and delicately, too shell-shocked to even really speak, hoping that whoever or whatever was hunting them was content to chase Dutch and Micah for a while longer.

They could go north, go far north, find somewhere to stay for a long while and disappear. Maybe go to Canada. Start completely new. Somewhere not here. It would be good for them, maybe, good to leave the nightmare behind. 

Ah, the old nightmare. 

He didn’t want to think about it too much, but then there was the issue of Arthur. Arthur was just a wild card, now, and John couldn’t think of those possibilities without holding his breath, without flicking the ashes into the street and watching them die and running through his mind what travelling with Arthur could mean.

For some reason he’d never doubted that Arthur wouldn’t hurt them. As much as Arthur wasn’t Arthur, anymore, he still was - but it was that new Arthur, sickly and introspective, suspended in those last few weeks before… before he’d died. 

John leaned his head back and let it rest against the brick wall behind him. His horse snorted, lowering her head to doze lazily next to John’s leg. 

He didn’t like to think about that night on the mountain. Abigail had begged him not to go back, said it wasn’t what Arthur would have wanted, and well, maybe she was right. But over and over again his mind had circled around to the faces of the dead, to Jenny and Davey and Hosea and Sean, and he knew he wouldn’t sleep without at least knowing what Arthur had become. 

_ When he went back, later that night, it was as if wolves had gotten to him. Arthur was lying splayed on the ground, his chest ripped open, throat gurgling as if trying to breathe. John had watched transfixed as Arthur turned his head and locked John’s gaze in his rapidly darkening eyes and whispered, in that haunted voice- _

“Go home, John.” 

John’s eyes snapped open to see Arthur a foot away from him, standing way too close. His gaunt face betraying nothing as he stared, motionless, into John’s eyes. John swore quietly and dropped his cigarette, stomping it out to help calm the rapid fire beating of his heart. 

_ I was just thinking about you _ he almost said.  _ Watching you turn. Watching you die.  _

“Was just about to,” John muttered, but Arthur had already turned away, walking out into the street. Arthur whistled, and John wondered where he kept his horse - he hadn’t ever seen him ride one, but then again, he didn’t usually stay up to see where Arthur went at night. 

“Where do you go all the time, anyway?” John asked, and Arthur turned his gaze back to him, his eyes looking black in the dark. The soft clipping of hooves drew John’s attention, and he turned to see a tall grey horse with long legs stepping out from the shadows of an alley. 

_ Huh. _

“Up north, mostly. Sometimes I head towards Rhodes. It’s... exhausting over, though,” Arthur answered. It was a bit jarring - John had expected some pushback, or a fight, if he asked about these things. It hadn’t ever occurred to John that Arthur would just tell him.

“Why?” John asked, but he - he already knew. 

Arthur approached the horse and ran his fingers over her neck, smoothing down the hair. John couldn’t place the breed, looking at her, and when he stared she seemed to stare back with big, dark eyes. She didn’t have a saddle, or bridle.

“D’you really need me to say it, Marston?” Arthur replied. The horse bumped his arm, and he sighed, rubbing her nose. 

“I don’t know what to think anymore,” John replied. Arthur snorted.

“Neither do I.”

Arthur swung his leg over the horse’s back with ease, his fingers curling in her dark, seafoam mane. He looked over at John and parted his lips, and the first thought on John’s mind was  _ hungry.  _ He wanted to ask - he wanted to ask if he could come. But he was sure the answer would be no.

“Go home, John,” Arthur murmured. “Go home.” 

And then Arthur’s horse took off, though John was sure he hadn’t seen Arthur’s hands or legs move, and raced into the night. John stood there, dumb for a moment, feeling nothing and everything all at once, and then his hands and legs were moving on his own as if he’d just heard a gunshot. He grabbed his horse’s reins and pulled himself into the saddle, apologizing quietly as she gave a surprised snort at the sudden movement.

“Just a little bit more tonight, okay?” John whispered, spurring his horse onward after the disappearing ghost in the distance. “Just a little longer.” 

**

John followed Arthur north into the swamp, keeping as far away as he dared while not losing sight of the grey horse and its dark rider. He was worried he’d been found out when about a mile out of town Arthur stopped his horse and dismounted. John pulled up and pulled off the road, wincing as the mare snorted loudly at the squishy ground under her hooves. From a distance he watched Arthur pace briefly, then squatted low to the ground. It was hard to see what he was doing. It made John anxious. The moon was bright enough enough that if Arthur turned around he would see someone watching from far away. But if Arthur noticed, he didn’t care, and mounted his horse again to continued north.

Arthur repeated this a few more times before John realized he was tracking something.  _ I’m stupid,  _ he thought to himself, shaking his head to keep himself awake. It wasn’t the first time he had rode on late into the night in pursuit of something, and he wasn’t going to give in now. He wasn’t even sure what he was chasing, really, but it felt important. He needed to get as close to Arthur’s truth as he could, whatever that was.

Arthur’s hunt took them out of the swamp and up into the rocky forests of the Van Horne area, and here John felt a little more unsettled. He knew if they continued on for much longer the road would become too winding and the trees too thick - John couldn’t possibly hang back far enough to not be noticed.

“Damn it,” he whispered, egging his horse on just a little more to keep the grey within eyesight.

Just then Arthur’s horse took a sharp turn left, right into the woods, and John pulled up, watching helplessly as the silver flank disappeared off the path and into the trees. 

“God damn it!” He repeated, momentarily torn between crawling home in defeat or pressing on, going where Arthur obviously didn’t want to be seen.

“You’re not getting rid of me that easily, Arthur Morgan,” he muttered, gathering the reins and pointing his horse in the direction he’d last seen Arthur go. His horse gave another snort at being taken off rode, but pushed on, head bent into the climb as they trotted uphill.

It was darker in the trees, and John let his horse pick her own way through the trees, while he strained his eyes to try to see any trace of Arthur. The bushes were low and thick, and every other step would be sideways as his horse shifted on loose dirt or danced around a rock he hadn’t been paying enough attention to see. She shook her mane as if to say  _ look, Marston, I could be having some nice hay right now and here you are, acting like a fool in the forest for Arthur Morgan.  _

“I know, you’re right, lady, you’re right,” he soothed, giving her a firm pat. “But since when did I listen to folks who were talking sense?” He chuckled, tilting his head up to look at the moon, swollen in the sky, her light barely held back by the trees. “You and Abigail would have a thing or two to say about that, huh?”

“You’re going to scare away my hunt, Marston,” the trees said back, with a voice like water over smooth rock. “If you keep talking to yourself like that.”

John’s head swivelled so fast his neck hurt, eyes seeking out the familiar voice in the dark. Part of a tree to his right was moving, and in the dark he could make out the glow of two red eyes staring back at him.

Arthur Morgan leapt soundlessly from his perch, landing in the leaves with the grace of a cat. John’s horse didn’t even have time to spook before Arthur had a hand on her nose, murmuring too low for John to hear, though his gaze never left the other man’s face. There was something strangely intimate, somewhat demeaning, about sitting on a horse that another man was holding. John thought so anyway as Arthur took her by the bridle and planted a single kiss on her nose. 

“Did you know I was following you?” He asked, trying his best to sound unphased by the whole thing. 

“Me and half the damn state, I think,” Arthur replied. “You’d scare off a deaf rabbit riding around like that.” And just like that, Arthur turned and kept walking, a stride too long for the uneven terrain. John dismounted and gave his horse a firm  _ stay there  _ pat, following after Arthur as fast as he could, half-blind in the dark. 

“What are you doing here, John Marston?” Arthur asked, his gruff voice floating down to John through the dark and the trees. John opened his mouth to answer but stumbled on a rock, swearing quietly under his breath. As soon as he did Arthur’s hand shot out to catch him, and his free one covered John’s mouth.

“You gotta go,” Arthur said. John could smell dirt and blood on Arthur’s palm until he pulled it away.

“I couldn’t just leave you,” John replied as soon as his mouth was free, though Arthur’s iron grip on his upper arm never changed. Here in the dark he could almost imagine it was the same Arthur: fleshed out, steely-eyed, maybe with a tan, and without the sick circles under his eyes. Without the moon as a highlight, it was easy to unsee Arthur embraced by death. 

“You can and you should,” Arthur said, then, without missing a breath, added: “I should’ve died back there on that mountain, and taken all of it with me.  _ You can go on, John Marston. _ ” 

So Arthur knew. His free hand came to rest on John’s collarbone, but it wasn’t a threat. 

“You think I’d just leave you, then?” John asked. “The only person who came to help us when it all went to shit? Leave you behind. You think that little of me, Arthur Morgan?”

“I think it’s the right decision to keep your family safe.”

“Jack loves you,” John said. “Abigail loves you. We want you to come with us, no matter who you are or what you’ve done - you’ve saved our lives, Arthur. I couldn’t just leave you.” 

“You understand what I do, right?” Arthur said. “You understand I’m about to go into these woods and find some poor soul to kill not even cause he’s dangerous but because I am? You know I’m terrified to go hungry least I go crazy and kill someone that don’t deserve it? I’m sick, John! I’m sick and I shoulda died a bad man and not become - whatever this is! All those wrongs I shoulda taken with me to the grave!” Arthur’s voice turned into a snarl and he grabbed John by the collar. John felt something deep in his heart freeze, like he was alone in the cold and dark with no hope and the wolves, the wolves were closing in again.

John had to remember to breathe. Some part in the back of his mind realized it was the first time Arthur had touched him this much in years. That was enough to remind him how to speak. He brought his hands up to Arthur’s wrist and - he didn’t pull away, but he held on.

“...I don’t know how you got to be this and I don’t care,” John replied. “Because we’ve done worse before.”

“John, you think any of that was-“

“Shut the hell up. I ain’t finished,” John snarled back. Arthur went quiet.  _ Good,  _ John thought.  _ See? I can be scary too.  _ “I don’t care if it’s wrong or if it’s dangerous because you are my friend, Arthur Morgan, and you’re the best damn friend I have ever had.”

“And what about Abigail, then?” Arthur replied. “And Jack? You don’t care about the fact that I put them in danger? I’m everything you need to get away from! Our past and my future - there’s no being safe around me! You need to stop trying to save a ghost and focus on the living people you care about!” 

“Jesus Christ, Arthur, being around  _ me  _ puts them in danger! Half the state wants me dead!”

“You know that ain’t the same -“

“Arthur, I know you won’t hurt them,” John said, and he believed it. “Of all the folks on this damn earth you are the only one I truly believe would never hurt Jack or Abigail. You were ready to die first. And that has not changed. You can say you’re sick, Arthur Morgan, but you are still the same god - damned -  _ idiot  _ who has been with me all these years, and the same man who is still standing here thinking of everyone else above himself.” John was leaning into Arthur’s grip now, his nails digging into the pale, cold skin of Arthur’s wrists. “We’re going to go north cause that’s what Abigail wants and you’re going to come with us, Arthur, because you are more than a ghost, you are my  _ friend. _ ” 

That was as close as he could get to all the things he felt, and knew he was feeling. Arthur had always been there, and John loved him, like he loved Jack, like he loved Abigail - he loved Arthur in all the ways he didn’t know how, in all the ways he failed. And he didn’t know that he wasn’t going to fail them now, or fail them a thousand times more, and maybe they’d die tomorrow but at some point he didn’t care. Maybe Arthur should’ve died, but John didn’t want him too, and now he held on to Arthur like something was going to steal him away forever.

When John leaned in to kiss Arthur, it wasn’t the first time. There had been many kisses, some angry, some silent, but always unspoken, unexplained, even though they both knew - hell, Abigail probably knew - because there are some things you just can’t let go, and John wanted there to be more kisses, he wanted to learn this cold skin the same way he knew the old Arthur. It felt like kissing a dead man. Kissing a dead man with teeth that pressed against John’s lower lip like a gun to the back of his head. But John was used to that kind of thing. It hadn’t killed him yet. 

“I’m going to be carrying all of this for my whole life, Arthur,” John said, and he hated how defeated he sounded. Arthur was barely moving against him, still as stone, but John knew he’d kissed back. John knew and he held on to that for dear life. “Everything that’s happened, I’m never gonna leave that behind. And leaving you behind won’t change that. So for fuck’s sake, Arthur Morgan, come with me.” 

“John,” Arthur replied. His words ghosted John’s lips, breathless, cold. “John, I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

“Why?” John sighed. “What do you got to be sorry for, Arthur?”

“John. I’m hungry.” 

***

The wagon had to be covered, and Abigail hadn’t asked where the two men had gotten it: she quietly helped them pack, pulled Jack up into the seat next to her, and shot John a knowing, tired look. But John reached out and touched her arm, and gave Jack’s shoulder a squeeze, and took the reins into his hand and urged his horse on. Abigail reached back to touch John, too, her fingers trailing down his cheek and coming to rest on his neck, at the red bite mark poorly hidden by his bandanna. 

Arthur’s strange grey mare looked a sight next to John’s bay, but she plodded on like any diligent horse, and drove like an angel. 

“Weather’s nice, we can make good time,” John said, looking up and shielding his eyes against the sun. It looked so bright all of a sudden, like a spotlight showing the world where they are. When he glanced at Abigail she had her head tilted back, hair falling down around her shoulders, soaking up the warmth on her cheeks and neck.

“It is nice,” she replied, and she sounded tired, rubbing her wash-worn knuckles with calloused fingers. Jack kept twisting as if trying to peer behind them, and John’s heart stopped for a moment, but Jack turned back to the road ahead, unperturbed. 

From the back of the wagon, tucked in with their few things and wrapped in their bedsheets, John could feel two red eyes burning into the back of his neck, just like the bite mark burned, and his shoulders relaxed. 

The road out of town turned into the swamp boardwalk, and the further they got from Saint Denis the more acutely aware John was of the footsteps that seemed to walk in time with the horses and the creak of the wagon, like a dozen ghosts walking with them. But when John looked back all he could see was open space, and Arthur’s red eyes, peering out of the darkness of their baggage.


End file.
